About this event
On 15 and 16 April, at 8.30 pm, at the "A. Genovesi" Theater in Via Principessa Sichelgaita, 12, in Salerno, a great event, with a retrospective of Vesna Ljubić. The great director from Sarajevo will be present and will help us travel through her films and the history of the Balkans. On April 17th, again at 8.30 pm, in the Casa della Poesia headquarters (Baronissi, Via Convento 21A) a meeting with the director. It will be an opportunity for a small party with the "Friends of the House of Poetry", to discuss with Vesna Ljubic, to thank her for coming to Italy. The entire event is organized by Casa della Poesia, with the Municipality of Salerno (Department of Culture and University), the University of Salerno (Department of Humanistic Studies and Department of Cultural Heritage Sciences). Five films by Vesna Ljubić, screened for the first time in Italy and translated for the occasion: "The Last Diverter of the Narrow Gauge Railway" (1987). "Illusionists" (1991), "Ecce Homo" (1994), "Adio Kerida" (2001), "Bosnian Rhapsody on the margins of science" (2011). The university meetings will be organized in the mornings of 9, 10, 11 April. We thank the Compagnia dell'Eclisse, the "Da Vinci" Scientific High School and the "A. Genovesi" Technical Institute for their collaboration. FREE ENTRY Parking
Program
Program 15 April 2013 at 8.30pm "A. Genovesi" Theater Via Principessa Sichelgaita 12, Salerno Ecce homo (1994, 30 min) Bosnian rhapsody on the margins of science (2011, 50 min.) 16 April 2013 at 8.30pm "A. Genovesi" Theater Via Principessa Sichelgaita 12, Salerno Illusionists (!991, 20 min.) Adio Kerida (2001, 55 min.) 17 April 2013 8.30 pm House of Poetry via Convento 21/A, Baronissi Meeting and party with Vesna Ljubic The last switch of the narrow-gauge railway (1987, 90 min.)
Information
VESNA LJUBIC BIOGRAPHY Filmmaker Vesna Ljubic was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where she attended high school and where she continues to live and work. Graduated in Art from the Department of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo, she studied film direction at the Experimental Center of Rome and at RAI. In the early 1970s he worked as an assistant to Federico Fellini. In Rome, Vesna made a short film "Journey", and the documentary "Death is paid off through living". Returning to Sarajevo, she produced a series of documentary films and "Simcha", a television film about the life of Jews in Sarajevo, proclaimed the best television film of the year, and purchased by numerous European television networks. In 1980, Vesna Ljubic received the National Prize of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the screenplay of "The Defiant Delta", her first feature film. In 1987, Vesna Ljubic's second film, "The Last Switcher of the Narrow Gauge Railway", won the first prize for best screenplay at the National Competition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was presented at several film festivals and at the New Delhi International Film Festival in February, 1987. The film tells of the end of an era, and the transformation of society through the new railway lines. In 1991, Vesna produced "The Illusionists," a thirty-minute film for which she received the best director award at the Belgrade Film Festival. "The Illusionists" also later appeared in the official selection of the Bombay International Film Festival. Ljubic follows the life of a family of wandering artists who perform simple magic tricks. Before the outbreak of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vesna visited India, where she directed and produced four documentary films and a three-part series for television. Unfortunately, upon his return to Sarajevo, his house was hit by a mortar shell and a significant part of the recorded material was destroyed by fire. Shortly thereafter, the Sarajevo film studio in Jagomir was also bombed and burned, along with the complete material stored there. His most famous film is the 1994 documentary, entitled "Ecce Homo", shot in Sarajevo under siege. An extraordinary testimony and an act of love for his martyred city. For two years Ljubic collected a series of portraits of people who live and die together in Sarajevo, where she herself remained throughout the war. This film was screened at almost all the major festivals in Europe, and received a series of awards: Venice 1994, Berlin 1994, Amsterdam 1994, Cretey (Paris) 1995. In Washington DC the film opened the 1994 World Peace Conference, and in Chicago the International Dialogues on Bosnia. The film received excellent reception at the Second International Conference on Documentary Film in Los Angeles in 1995, held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts. “Adio Kerida” from 2001 is instead the cheerful and somewhat ironic story of an American who seeks his roots in Bosnia, in an era in which everyone in Bosnia is trying to go to America. This young man, of Polish Jewish origins - whose ancestors came to America three generations ago - is looking for traces of his great uncle who in the first part of the 20th century, fleeing from Poland, goes to Sarajevo. Armed only with a yellowed photograph and a few scraps of information about his great-uncle, he meets the last exponents of the Sephardic communities. This entire film is an unusual tribute to Spain, from which they were expelled 500 years ago. For all those who participated in this research, Spain is "Kerida": loved, and they have never forgotten their homeland. As a reminder of Spain they have, as on some island, preserved their traditions, their language, and the Sephardic Ladin songs that they brought from distant Andalusia. In “Bosnian Rhapsody on the Margins of Science” from 2011, Ljubic tells us about the Ljekaruše [Herbals], the reference books of popular medicine that are found in all four ethnic groups living in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and which have always contained elements of religion, magic, mysticism and demonism. The diseases for which people have been treated for centuries have always been a reflection of the conditions of the society in which they lived. Through the story of the Ljekaruše who have been passed down from one generation to the next as part of Christian, Islamic and Jewish tradition, the film takes a closer look at today's post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and the diseases currently plaguing the entire community. Lost, deceived, hopeless, forcibly expelled from their homes, people without exception and regardless of their ethnicity feel uprooted and depressed. Sensitive to manipulation by politics and religion, they have become increasingly skeptical of false promises of a better life, equality, and a return to a multi-ethnic society. Vesna Ljubic continues to work as an editor of theater and documentary programs for Radio-Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
